Stress Jingle #9: John Trubee & The Ugly Janitors of America

John Trubee, man, myth, legend. Already known around the world for his crank calls, his sick sense of humor, his miserable job in the hardware store and his band, the Ugly Janitors of America. He has been an important figure in the independent scene for many years now, which started off with the unexpected radio hit "A Blind Man's Penis", the most famous song-poem recording of all time. At first glance, a great chunk of Trubee's oeuvre - musical and otherwise - reeks of spite, of piss and vinegar. Songs like "Satan Pukes on High School Cheerleaders" and "Mental Illness Can Be Beautiful" project an image of a man whose confidence in the human condition is very low. But upon closer examination, Trubee's life and work has been "not about the darkness of life, but about the joyous absurdity and strangeness of it". For the past 10 years, Trubee has lived in almost total obscurity in Santa Rosa, writing songs, dubbing cassette tapes, and burning a colorful assortment of CDRs. He's released a fat stack of albums with multiple bands and music projects, including art-rockers Zoogz Rift & His Amazing Shitheads (with musician, painter and professional wrestling personality Zoogz Rift); written reams of scathing, razor-sharp antipoetry; and helmed a mail-order business that carries bootlegged prank phone-call tapes, bizarre video productions, and Kinko's-bred printed material.

Now you can hear him on Stress FM:

"Trubee is the perfect example of the hidden life behind the picture of the guy we see on the cover of an obscure album in the record store, the unexceptional reality of his 9-to-5 life obscuring the underground legacy of his artistic life."